Great Opening Lines

“The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” - The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

I was having dinner with a couple of friends last week. One of them was reading my most recent short story collection. She commented on how much she liked the way my stories opened. 

Like any writer I work hard to come up with a good open. I firmly believe if you have a good opening line or paragraph it will draw readers in. It got me to thinking about great opening sentences in books that I’ve read. 

When we were in high school or college, most of us had to read A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. So many teachers would quote that opening sentence as one of the great openers of all time. Of course we all remember, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”. 

The entire opening sentence is actually, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There have been other great opening lines that I remember:

“Call me Ishmael.” - Moby Dick by Herman Melville 

“All this happened, more or less.” - Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.“ - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

 

“You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” - The Color Purple by Alice Walker

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” - Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

“My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.“ - The Stranger by Albert Camus

And so many more. 

Two of my favorites are:

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” - One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

“When Quintus Bland set out to enjoy the evening he had not the vaguest idea he was destined to become a skeleton. Yet that is exactly what he did become-an impressive structure composed entirely of bone as far as the eye could reach.” -  Skin And Bones by Thornton Smith

One of the first things I learned when it comes to writing is to never start at the beginning. Jump into the middle of a scene or story and let the audience catch up to you. Grab them quickly and they will stay around to see how things turn out. 

So how do my own opening lines stack up? I like to think they’re pretty good. Of course some of them are better than others. I certainly don’t feel my stories are classics but one never knows what will happen down the road. 

Here are a some of mine:

“I am the poster boy for bad decision making in the Independent Film world.” - The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Part One 

“Our story starts in the Garden of Eden. Not that one. The one in Lucas, Kansas.” - Road Dog 

“Do you go to hell if you lie to a pastor? He’s not a real pastor; he’s the youth pastor. Does that count? - Incident At Arrah Wanna


“Dennis Barton is a bastard. He knows it, and he can’t help it. He should feel bad, but he doesn’t. He might if the sex wasn’t so great.” - Dennis Barton Is A Bastard

“This guy is a crook! He’s stealing from me! You can’t trust this guy at all. I had valuable stuff here, and he’s stolen it!” Billy wails. - Billy Wilder Is Crazy

“If truth be told, I do not like crows. They freak me out. Finding out crows recognize death and recognize people who abuse them is unsettling.” Listen To The Crows They Know

I work on story openings long after I’m finished with the bulk of the story. I may do eight or nine drafts of a complete story but I do many more of the opening. I have one chance to get it right and I want to put my best lines forward. But once you get that opening you need to make sure the rest of the story lives up to it. 

Does anyone out there have any favorite opening lines? Please leave them in the comments.

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